An Easy Burden

(The following is a personal post from one of our members.)

There was a difference between what I thought I had to do and what I ended up doing to find sobriety, recovery, and freedom.

What I thought I had to do was to find a few key ideas that I could implement in my life to take care of this one problem that I had of sexual acting out. What I actually had to do was to give my life to God (surrender it) and allow him to change whatever he wanted to about it. That process is still ongoing and progressive.

I started out wanting to maintain my position as the lord of my own life, but I perceived that I had this one glaring problem, my sexual acting out, and to that I was seemed to be a slave. I wanted to become strong enough to master my own impulses, to be able to fight a battle and win it myself, to be able to lust without consequence.

What I had to do was to admit defeat, admit that I could never become strong enough to master myself. I had to find a true Lord of my life who was Master over all, a Power that could and would do for me what I could not do for myself. The program of the 12 Steps gave me a path to follow to connect rightly with that Lord and Master, to be open to the work of his Power in me to do the impossible in me.

What I had wanted was a few simple actions I could take that required no serious commitment on my part to real change. I feared real change, because I perceived it would require me to give up things I didn't want to let go of and to do other things I really didn't want to do. (About that I was correct.)  The program people said, "We beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start."  When someone starts with that as the intro, you might want to pay attention to what comes next!

What changed for me that finally pushed me off the top, that finally broke me and my will, that finally made the idea of Someone else running my life look truly appealing? For me it was the internal, spiritual pain of loneliness and self-loathing, the demoralization that the program people talk about. It was the recognition that I was completely in bondage to lust with no way out in my own strength.

It turned out to be a sweet defeat. That's where I found God waiting for me.

The path to defeat was easy. All I had to do was to run my own life, my way, do whatever I thought was right and best for me, and follow after the pleasures of lust. Easy; anyone can do that! But the consequences were devastating.

The path to recovery turned out to be far easier than I had feared it would be. Yes, it was hard work to be "fearless and thorough" from the very start. Yes, there were times of painful recognition of who I had become and what I had done. Yes, there was the admission of wrongs and the humbling of making amends. Yes, "clearing away the wreckage" of my past took effort. Yes, I no longer had an "easy" drug to temporarily dull the pain that reality brought to me when I stopped living in the illusion. But it has been far, far easier to live life this way than the constant pain and fear and harm that my old way of life was loading me down with, a burden I could never bear.

Through following the SA road to recovery, Someone lifted that unbearable burden from me. His "burden" of living rightly connected to God and others is light. I am never sufficiently grateful.

Lust addiction (vs. acting out sexually)

(The following is a personal post from one of our group members.)

Step 1 of the SA program says that I am addicted to lust: "We admitted that we were powerless over lust—that our lives had become unmanageable." Some compulsive forms of sexual acting out were what showed me that I had a problem, but those were actually the result of something deeper, the result of my lust.

I found along the way that that is an important distinction for me. When I focused on trying not to act out sexually, I failed to make any positive gains against my problem. When I instead focused on lust, it became apparent that without lust driving me to act out, acting out didn't happen. But then it also became apparent that the real problem was that I was powerless over lust, unable to fight it or succeed in struggling against it. And that's when Step 1 became a real experience for me. I knew beyond doubt that I was truly powerless over lust--that my life had become unmanageable.

Fortunately Step 2 follows immediately after Step 1, and provided me with some hope that there was a solution outside myself, a powerful God that could and would restore me to sanity. For me, lusting really is insanity, so I needed a God who could do something about that problem. And having learned to surrender my will and life and temptations and lust to Him (Step 3), I am set free from my addiction to lust. And when I am free from lust, any form of sexual acting out just doesn't happen.

Sleepless nights

(The following is a personal post from one of our group members.)

I was remembering an incident a couple of nights ago when I could not get to sleep.  Eventually I got up and turned on the computer. I checked my email accounts, and spent some time writing a few responses and then some posts to an online recovery group. Eventually, feeling sufficiently tired, I headed off to bed.

My wife had been asleep through all of this. I ever so quietly opened the door and did everything I could not to wake her.

And at that moment a thought occurred to me.  I had done this same thing so many times before, this sneaking back to bed after having been on the computer in the middle of the night. But this time was different. This time was in recovery, because this time I was still sober.

When I was still trapped in my addiction, I would have been sneaking back into the room feeling oh so guilty and ashamed. I would have been doing everything I could so as not to wake her and have her wondering what I had been doing. My motivation would have been to hide and deceive, to not be caught.

But now it is all different. Now my motive is good. Now I am not thinking of myself at all. Now I am only thinking about her well-being, trying my best to not wake her so that at least she will have a good night's sleep.

For me, the joys of this program are in watching how God is changing me as I surrender to His will for me, surrender my selfishness and resentment and a lot of other character defects, and ask Him to change me.  Working the Steps with a sponsor taught me how to start doing that.

"It works if you work it."

Is porn the problem?

(This is a personal post from one of our group members.)

For me, the problem isn't really porn or masturbation or any other particular form of sexual acting out behavior. It's about lust. Sometimes I think it would be better to call our program Lust Addicts Anonymous.

If I am not lusting, I will not turn to porn or masturbation or sex. But because I am an SA, if I am lusting , I will inevitably end up acting out sexual behaviors (which for me includes porn use and masturbating). Focusing on avoiding porn is a solution that is doomed to failure for me as a true addict. Porn use is a result of my lusting, not the cause of it.

For the SA, lust is the drug. God is the solution. The 12 Step program is the path to a right relationship with God, who can and will keep a surrendered lust addict sober.

That's my experience.

Resisting the inevitable

(This post is a personal story from one of our group members.)

A fellow SA member shared with me about his attempts to resist his acting out behaviors. I could really relate to that feeling that I would only be able to resist for just so long, and then inevitably would act out again. We both had that experience over and over again. I think that's part of how I know I'm an addict. I could not resist even when I wanted to.

But, thank God, it didn't have to stay that way. Surrendering to God instead of resisting by my own effort was the key to staying sober without the inevitable build up and failure. There was a way to find freedom, and working the Steps with a sponsor was the way I learned what surrender really meant. And the Steps brought me into a right relationship with God and others.

There really is hope in this program, but it only seemed to happen for me when I was really ready to give up my own way of living and turn my will over to God.

Slipping

(The following is a personal post from one of our members.)

Some time ago I was talking with my wife about some things I was experiencing while working the program. Based on my prior experiences with slipping (aka relapsing), I knew I was in no position to try to fool myself or anyone else (her included) and make a claim to "never go back out there."

Instead I simply said, "I'm only ever one bad choice away from a relapse." And it doesn't even have to be a big choice or an obvious choice. One subtle, little choice, and I can be on the road to a relapse. And because I'm a sexaholic, that choice will be an "easy" one to make. That's been my past experience many, many times, and I don't doubt it can happen again.

I'm told by the old-timers that all I have is a "daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition." Here it is in context:

"It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for [lust] is a subtle foe. We are not cured of [sexaholism]. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition." (AABB, p. 85)

So what really matters in the end is my "spiritual condition." I've got to continue to ask myself, "Am I currently in right relationship with God and others?" (cf. Step 10)  "Am I growing spiritually in conscious connection with God?" (cf. Step 11)  "Am I trying to help others and sharing about who I really am and the story of what God is doing to change me in all areas of my life?" (cf. Step 12)

But without working the first nine Steps of the program with a sponsor, there wasn't any way I was going to know what the last three even meant, let alone do them.

I sincerely believe that if I am in continual right connection with a "loving God" that "could and would if He were sought,"  relapse simply won't happen. But if I walk away from that connection and start to once again "rest on my laurels" and believe I can do this on my own, then that "one bad choice" has already happened, and I'm on my way to that relapse, because I'm on my own.

Why I Acted Out - A Personal Story

(This post is a personal story from one of our members.)

I'm reminded by something I read in the Alcoholics Anonymous book that we don't decide for someone else whether or not they are an addict. (And then they gave a suggested test for "potential" alcoholics who want to try to find out for themselves, which involved some more drinking.)  So all I can say is what is true for me, someone who has concluded without a doubt that I am a sexaholic.

I acted out to deal with stress. I acted out to avoid feelings. I acted out to escape from life. I acted out to have a fantasy world to live in. I acted out to punish myself. I acted out to reward myself. I acted out to prepare for the day. I acted out to help me get to sleep. I acted out because the sex I engaged in two minutes ago wasn't the fantasy I wanted it to be. I acted out because I was bored. I acted out to heighten dull emotions. I acted out to heighten already heightened emotions. I acted out to bring myself out of the dumps. I acted out because I liked how it felt. I acted out because I just acted out and I was feeling awful about it. I acted out because it made me feel in control of something. I acted out because it made me my own god. I acted out because of the intrigue, the tease and the forbidden. I acted out because I believed it was impossible not to, so I might as well get it over with. I acted out for myriad of other reasons.

But whatever might be the particular reason at any particular moment, in the end, I acted out because I am a sexaholic. And that means for me that acting out is what inevitably follows my lusting. And I couldn't stop, even when I wanted to.

And then finally when I was really ready to be done with acting out, I surrendered to God and to this simple program of working the 12 Steps under the direction of a sponsor.  And now I am no longer acting out.